Loaded up Remember Me last night. Interesting game. Something of Deus Ex and something of Assassin's Creed, and a whole lot of beating the absolute shit out of anything that looks at you wrong, all wrapped up in a story with a believable reason for not knowing who you are because you start the game having your memories sucked out of the back of your head.

It's brand new, by a new developer (dontnod) with a team who have experience in games like Rainbow 6 and Splinter Cell. That said, it runs a little glitchy for something that uses the Unreal engine, but nothing that shouldn't be sorted with a patch or two, and the third person camera has the usual camera issues.

The combat is pretty nice though. Well for me it is. I don't usually like fighting games, because I can't be bothered memorising random button presses. Remember Me tackles that by making the combos completely customisable. You want kick kick punch kick punch, you got it! Plus there are added effects, such as certain hits will return some health or reduce a power up cool down period.

Interspersed with the fights are scenes where you wander around and see the sights, or enter other people's memories and watch them and then adjust them to suit your purposes.

It's not perfect, but it is fun, the story has engaged me, and I'll be playing through till the end methinks. I recommend it!

Synchronicity wrote:Yeah, I'm really struggling to get through Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The combat is great... but that's literally it. The characters (there are none), the voice acting, the dialogue, the story, the backstory, the graphics, the setting, the inventory, the interface, and the controls SUCK. I mean it's a fine RPG but without a decent story or really anything to carry the phenomenal combat through I just can't seem to get myself around to playing it.

Ugh, fuck this piece of shit. I came across a bug in the main quest that won't let me progress because I did a bunch of sidequests first. Without a console, mods, or any support I can't progress in the game without starting from scratch. Now 40 hours of gameplay was for nothing. Fuck it all.

Just picked up Gunpoint on Steam for ten bucks - loving it! It's a tactical espionage romp where you infiltrate various facilities and rewire their electrical systems to your advantage. There's a text based noir-style story line of sorts that sets the pace for each mission. There are weapons and other upgrades as you progress as well. Try out the demo on Steam if you're interested. I bought the game right away after playing through.

About a dozen or so hours into Risen 2 - Dark Waters and I'm very pleased. I'm honestly surprised it got the poor reviews that it got but I am playing almost a year after release so most of the bugs were probably patched. The game is (surprise) a sequel to Risen, which was a surprisingly fun and engrossing RPG with some pretty cool mechanics and trope subversions. I think the biggest feature of the series is your snarky player character and the incredibly well done dialogue and voice acting. The combat has always been shit but the leveling mechanics offset that by making every skill increase extremely valuable (and noticeable). The environments are basically luscious jungle islands but they're pretty despite the dated visuals. The game rewards exploration with tons of loot and secret quests. I think my favorite part of the series is that a good chunk of quests merely involve dialogue and things happening in town rather than across the game world.

Despite the fetch/kill quests and the occasional escort quest, there are a lot of different ways to complete quests, from stealth to dialogue checks to straight-up combat. Risen 2 introduces a pirate theme and firearms (which, once you get a musket, are pretty overpowered), plus the ability to captain your own ship and recruit its crew. It's pretty fun but like I said, the combat really sucks and you really should stay clear of any melee weapons. You get stunned all the time and it takes forever to be competent. The story is interesting in that the backstory is really sparse and everything is focused on the here and now, with filler details slowly uncovered as you quest. So there's a pretty good sense of narrative pacing. But it's all pretty basic. The game's focus is on its dialogue.

It's a rough budget European title so don't expect a stellar AAA-experience. But for what's there (and for a low price) it's definitely worth checking out for RPG fans.

I'm finding myself having a lot of fun with Tales of Monkey Island, the 5-part adventure game series by Telltale, which I picked up on gog.com when it was like 80% off or something. I'm only in the second episode, but I really like it so far. Monkey Island is one of my favorite gaming universes to spend time in, and I'm playing through most of the game with a smile on my face and laughing out loud several times. I like the references to earlier MI games and adventure games in general, but the game thankfully doesn't get so goofy that it becomes a parody of adventure games. The puzzles have about the right difficulty for me, sometimes I needed a little help from the in-game hint system (it doesn't outright tell you what to do, just gives you a nudge in the right direction) but I never had to check any online walkthroughs so far. For me this game hits the right notes and has the familiar Monkey Island charm in spades. Right now I'm thinking I'll play all the 5 episodes one after the other without any other games in between.

It's just too bad I never played Escape from Monkey Island (MI4). That game isn't for sale anymore and second-hand prices are quite steep. If GOG or Steam ever starts selling it I'm snagging it up immediately.

I'm playing Ghost Recon Future Soldier. Nothing futuristic about it save for your gear. You still infiltrate third-world territories with the same missions varieties you've come to expect from military games. Nothing about it feels fresh, yet it's still fun. Assassins Creed 3 was wearing thin, so I had to change up. I could have chosen something better from my list of unplayed games, but Tom Clancy's usually a safe bet. I do like it. Bioshock Infinite is next up.

I'm a huge fan of 4X strategy games, especially those set in space, but the Sword of the Stars series sucks. It has a lot of promise with some awesome ideas and a lot of backstory but all of that is let down by a god-awful interface, terrible AI, bugs, and execution problems. Steer clear of this, sadly.

Enjoyed Transformers: War for Cybertron. Very linear and very pew-pew-y but the Transformers backstory is fleshed out really well and the setting looks awesome. It's game for fans of Transformers (the cartoons, not the shitty movies) and no one else.

Also played the first Splinter Cell for the first time and I was impressed at how well it held up over the years. Very fun, great AI, great graphics, great gameplay, and an interesting story. Sadly Pandora Tomorrow doesn't work on modern hardware for some goddamn reason (I think this is specific to NVIDIA drivers).

Burned through the new Tomb Raider about a week ago. It felt very much like an Uncharted game....only better. I really didn't like Uncharted 1 and while 2 was an improvement, it's not good enough to get me to play 3 anytime soon. The game had a good flow with interesting character and ran buttery smooth on my aging hardware. I hope they put out more like this. I was highly entertained with it. Not a big fan of having to back track to find all the collectables though....but that's just me.

I've given up hope of finishing Metro 2033 and started Last Light. Unfortunately I haven't really had any time to play, but the little bit I've played has been nice. I do have problems sometimes figuring out where I'm supposed to go.

So I just finished Aliens: Colonial Marines and I'm going to be perfectly honest, I kinda liked it. Played objectively it's basically Call of Duty in space with some cool gimmicks. Of course, if you're really into the franchise and followed all of the pre-release marketing with a voracious appetite you're going to be fucking pissed as shit and toss 1/10s everywhere.

I'm playing several months after release where a lot of the bugs with AI and pathfinding have been resolved so I might not be getting the same experience everyone else got at launch. But for me, I got a game that looks good (I love the lighting, even if it isn't as great as the E3 trailer), is extremely detailed, has an awesome environment, a great setting, and decent if very basic gameplay. It's tight and executed well as far as shooting goes.

But you can definitely see all of the lost potential. There was sooo much that could have been done with this title to make it incredible. As it stands, it's a Call of Duty shooter, which like CoD is well executed but overall bland and very reliant on scripted epic set pieces. For $12 I'm very happy.

Yeah, it's just that people love to have something to hate on, something to use as the new standard for shit. DNF is old news now, ACM is en vogue (an unfortunate coincidence that Gearbox has their name on both), and of course it's nowhere near as bad as people insist. Almost every single day, I see new comments from people on various websites, demanding that Randy Pitchford publicly apologize, that they give the game out for free because that's all it's worth, etc.

The singleplayer DLC that just came out today is also pretty fine (Stasis Interrupted). The first two levels are glimpses into what an Aliens game is all about considering you are a solitary but incredibly badass whirlwind of destruction making her way through a derelict ship infested with scary motherfucking alien bugs everywhere. There's an incredible amount of atmosphere and the levels are, again, really damn detailed. You can read the itsy-bitsy signs or the "random" text on the computer terminals, only to realize there's actual relevant info scrolling through the screen.

The music is fucking great. They got 20th Century Fox's orchestra to do it. But unfortunately the timing is really off so you get these "scary" piano chords 5 seconds before or after the danger appears. In fact, the scripting for the DLC seems to be really off. The few times you're paired with a friendly NPC results in him getting lost or incapacitated somewhere. It looks like the devs didn't implement the teleportation feature from the main campaign's latest patch, where your squad will continuously appear out of thin air to keep up with you. So handling enemies becomes a bit more long and repetitive than it was in the campaign.

The last three levels are all boring rehashes of the campaign levels but thankfully fill in the awful plot holes of the campaign. Everything pieces together well and the beginning of the A:CM campaign starts to make some sense. But due to the disjointed, multiple character POV the DLC's immediate plot is really sparse. There's also no weapon customization or upgrading, so combat is even more dull.

But for $9.99 (I paid that for the Season Pass during the sale but it's also going for that standalone) it a was a fine addition, especially for those first two levels.

FInished another game with overzealous criticism, Call of Juarez: The Cartel. Again, it's basically a poorly executed Call of Duty western. The combat is competent but bullets travel slowly and the gun handling is over-sensitive. Despite being short the game is fucking repetitive and monotonous, but it makes up for it with an interesting plot and narrative. It's designed to be a co-op game so it'll be three times better if you play it with a friend. As it stands, the AI is awful and introduces some scripting errors when they get stuck somewhere or you proceed without them. They're also useless in general. The game's story is racist and disingenuous about the Drug War and the characters are walking cliches, but they have some interesting interactions. The environments, when you're in a level that's not a run-down LA neighborhood, are very detailed but also very linear. The graphics are okay but the environmental effects leave this weird glare and cartoonish lighting. Also, the animations are silly but it uses the same engine as Dead Island.

Despite all of that, I sorta enjoyed it. For $5 I felt I got my money's worth on an interesting take on the Western genre. The last level is infuriating because your character will get knocked down with every tiny explosion and take 20 seconds to get up. So it's almost impossible to fight this helicopter that shoots nothing but rockets at you. I had to ragequit and watch the ending online.

Edit: Going through my huge backlog of games, starting off (as you can see) with the bargain-bin generic shooters that received mixed/poor reception. Just finished two more:

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is an interesting jet fighter game in that the controls are not "arcadey" but full-on something you would actually see at an arcade. It's really on-rails in that you push a button to lock-on to an enemy fighter jet, "dogfight" with it, and rinse and repeat until everything is dead. Besides battles taking waaay too long, this on-rails dogfighting mechanic is fun and exhilarating at times (especially when scripted, like in between skyscrapers and the like). However, you are not piloting, you are barely turning, and all you are doing is firing your near-infinite supply of missiles until it's dead. The jets completely defy the laws of physics and there's no ounce of realism to be found.

Other parts of the game include piloting an Apache with really shitty controls and strangely underpowered weapons, a turret gunner that literally hoses down enemies with an infinite stream of lead, and one level as an AC-130 gunner and one level as as stealth bomber. The AC-130 section is straight out of CoD but still lots of fun. The stealth bomber level is extremely annoying as it involves maneuvering around radar waves and then dropping bombs down a very linear flight path and if you miss a target you restart the level (I had to, again, ragequit and finish the game on YouTube).

The game is just super repetitive despite the somewhat interesting but entirely generic story. It's an air combat Call of Duty. I'm actually impressed they made one.

Next up, I finished Inversion. This game is basically Gears of War but if you ever played Dark Void the art style, story, and mechanics are more closely tied to that (different devs, though). I enjoyed the story. It was intriguing and mysterious (never revealed much until towards the end) and had some creative elements (savages speaking caveman but wielding sci-fi space weapons). The environments were also pretty detailed and pretty cool, until it all became destroyed and then it just started looking like the same apocalyptic setting over and over. The game is hyper-linear and has some scripting bugs but overall it's really polished and pretty good looking. The combat is super repetitive with endless boss battles against the same three bosses. I had to turn on a trainer just to get through the monotony. But the ending was worth it. Overall, for $5 I had fun and I recommend it to anyone looking for a third-person cover-based shooter.

I waited forever for Crysis 3 to come down in price, and while it did somewhat ($39) it has been at that price point for seemingly ever, so I said, "f**k it" and bought it. It's not bad, but what the hell happened to the magic of this franchise? Crysis 1 was so awesome, then Crysis 2 removed everything that was awesome about the environments and simplified the gameplay a bit. Crysis 3 seemed to try to add back in the thick-brush style environments but by this point all of the mystery of the aliens is long gone, the "evil corporation" cliche is long been... cliche, and GOOD GOD the game is short. I would call myself a very slow gamer (I explore the ever loving piss out of every game I play) and it only took me 11-ish hours to beat Crysis 3.

Crysis 1: 8.5/10Crysis 2: 6.5/10Crysis 3: 6.5/10

Right before playing Crysis 3 I played the newest Tomb Raider. Now that was a fun game. With tons of things to play around with in each environment, great controls, smooth graphics, etc, it's easily worth full price, let alone the $25 I got it on sale for.

Tomb Raider: 8.5/10

Next up is Metal Gear Solid 4. I usually only play four or five games a year but this year and last year have been chalked full of stuff to play (especially last year. 2012 was one of the greatest years in gaming that I can remember).

I can't continue Two Worlds II anymore. It's just so fucking boring. I didn't even get through the first act despite sinking over 20 hours. There are a LOT of quests and dungeons to complete but none of it creates any sort of impact on the game world or the main storyline. There are like three different types of dungeon and none of the enemies are the slightest bit interesting. The animations are awful. There's a three second wait time whenever you loot and it just drags the game on (especially if you have dozens of corpses laying around). Everything is locked and the lockpicking mini-game, though fun at first, just becomes a fucking chore. Bashing locks in is impossible with two-handed weapons because the hitboxes in this game are virtually nonexistent. The controls are a clumsy mess and the environments just start to blend in as one big blur thanks to the excessive bloom and drab color scheme.

And fuck the story. It doesn't exist. The characters don't exist. There is no plot progression. The books are poorly written. There are a few instances of chuckle worthy dialogue but it's nowhere on the level of Risen, another shitty European RPG but one that was saved by its wit and charm. Two Worlds II has none of that. The loot sucks, the inventory management drags on forever, the combat starts out somewhat interesting but never really fully develops...

Ugh, I really wanted to like this game. I love unpolished European RPGs but this one is just way too dull. It has all of the right mechanics for something decent but like Far Cry 2 if I don't get a sense of progression after 20 hours I'm out. I just feel like I'm wasting my time.

I just finished up Aliens:CM and my thoughts pretty much are the same as Synch's. Not bad but not great with tons of wasted potential. Even patched it still has its problems. Many an alien just stopped moving for me to freely shoot it and so many human enemies killed me cause they could shoot directly through their cover. Overall, it is disappointing but if you can snag it for a under $10 it's worth it.

Also completed Transformers:War for Cybertron.....nothing like being on the ball. Only a 3 year old game. The best way I can describe it is bland. The story...bland.....the action...bland......the gameplay....bland. The only thing not bland are the backgrounds but they are so busy it's easy to loose enemies in. It's worth playing for the wave of nostalgia you'll feel if you are of a certain age but other than that, it is not worth it.

Finally gotten to play Dragon Age: Origins. I started it once years ago and never got into it, but this time it's really good. Except Alistair is a whiny spoilt little shit and seriously I wanted to just deal to him.

Currently cleaning up the final missions before the big finale. Then probably back to Skyrim, which I set aside after a little over 100 hours.

I was playing the first Call of Duty and am now done with the expansion pack, United Offensive. I was dreading the final level because it was supposed to be very hard, many players could not finish it.

Well, on Regular difficulty it was a decent challenge but nothing too difficult, but for people who always play everything on the hardest difficulty by default, I can see how it gets them into trouble. I probably could not have done it on the hardest difficulty either.

I liked the game overall, it's more chaotic than Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (which came out a little before it and was made by members of the same team), more emphasis on squad based combat, where on MoH you're mostly dropped behind enemy lines by yourself. Stuff like leaning, going prone and iron sights aiming is a nice addition. On Full HD it still looks decent enough, I was not annoyed by the dated graphics. Fun game overall.

I finished Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs yesterday. It's a good thing it only cost me $15 because not only is it one of the shortest games I've ever played, but almost nothing actually happens.

The atmosphere is creepy, sure, but the game is a tenth as interesting, a tenth as scary and a tenth as atmospheric as A Dark Decent was.

I consider myself a 'slow' gamer; it tends to take me a long time to finish a game because of how meticulously I tend to play through anything. It only took me four hours to beat A Machine For Pigs. That's four hours of having the game on, too. That's not necessarily four hours of pure playing right through.

Well, it looks great, stunning environment and the cell shaded artstyle is quite charming. However, the gameplay, while not necessarily bad, is pretty shallow, doesn't have much depth. It's not entirely linear but it's always really obvious where you need to go. The writing is nothing to write home about either. You have the dutiful, dedicated princess and the reluctant hero who doesn't really care, the prince, who isn't really a prince by the way. Quite clichéd. Also, they didn't try to give any Middle Eastern flavor to the interactions between the prince and Elika. Of course it's hard to say how ancient Persians behaved, but apparently Ubisoft thought they behaved just like present day Americans.

I liked that the environments are quite dark at first but turn to pretty and green when you've conquered a territory. Then when it's green you have to collect light orbs that unlock new powers, you have to use those powers to reach new areas. But halfway through you have all the powers and then there's no more need to collect any more light orbs unless you desperately want all the Trophies/Achievements. Would be nice if they kept up the need to collect the light orbs, maybe give new combat abilities to you or your sidekick when you collect a certain amount or something.

It kind of ends on a downer note, and there's DLC that extends the story so I might get a happy ending, but I'm ready for something else so I'll leave it at that and won't get the DLC. It was a decent game overall, I liked that it was low on frustration for a noob like me. However, it also made me sloppy, when you fail a jump and fall into an abyss Elika pulls you back up and you can just try again immediately, so I often just jumped without thinking it through very well, because there's no consequence for failure. That was fine for this game but for other games with checkpoints where you can actually die and have to replay a good bit, I have to learn to be far more careful.

Oh man, the Battlefield 4 beta is great! I wasn't at all interested in BF4 since I thought it was pretty much a carbon copy of BF3 but the minor alterations and improvements they added to the game make a huge difference. The sound is even more incredible. I think that's the number one feature of BF4: the sound design. It's so fucking intense. In fact, the concepts of suppression, bullet drop, recoil, and movement have been tweaked to near perfection. What was once a neat feature but just above a gimmick is now a legitimate gameplay modifier. It takes a moment to start sprinting, leaping to cover carries momentum, crouching is dynamically adjusted to your cover... It just makes the game frantic and almost terrifying when in a firefight. Crank up the volume with a good pair of headphones with excellent 3D positioning and holy fuck.

The game is also a lot more destructible. Though most of it is scripted there's still a lot of stuff you can blow apart and it does change how the game is played. Vehicles handle a bit weirdly. There is more inertia at play so you can't just drift through corners effortlessly. That said, the interface is soooo much more improved. And I'm also so happy they got rid of the shitty color filters. Now everything isn't blue. Performance is great for a beta. I have a feeling that even though on ultra the graphics aren't quite fully activated for the beta. Some parts of the game look unfinished (the water especially).

All in all I'm actually seriously tempted to pick this up. I'll probably still wait for the first sale, though.

Killed off Doom 3: BFG Edition. I never played Doom 3 but I honestly didn't think highly of it. Even considering its age there were other shooters from that period that were objectively superior. The entire thing was monotonous and repetitive. I understand the atmosphere was wrecked in the BFG edition by creating more illumination. I think that was the one thing I do remember of Doom 3: how awesome the lighting was. And to this day very few games have truly dark environments with dynamic lighting. But regardless, I don't think the atmosphere was ever there because there was never a feeling of dread or terror. Enemies would constantly spawn behind you and after an hour of gameplay you had all of the scripting figured out. Nothing popped out that you didn't already expect, also no thanks to the three-second build-up of enemy spawns (the chanting followed by a lightning strike). I did like the PDA and audio log bits of backstory. Those were pretty interesting and created an incentive to explore. Other than that I honestly didn't care for the game.

I appreciated that the first two Doom games were fixed to work on modern hardware. I had more fun playing through those, especially under the influence.

Also finished Saints Row IV. I'm a bit upset about the direction the game took. For one, it's not a sequel. Not only does it reuse 90% of SR3's assets but it also doesn't really do much in terms of story or characters, which I loved in SR3. The first half-hour was a glimpse into what the game could have been, which was a really fun romp with the highly diverse and awesome cast of characters. But afterwards it's just you and Kinzie blasting technobabble all the time. The ironic introspection at the story's shortcomings stopped being funny and started to be an excuse for a poorly written game. The open world was also extremely underwhelming. They took away Steelport's iconic buildings and replaced it with cookie-cutter skyscrapers and neon lit alien structures. Everything is just dark and the game adds a lot of intentional graphical glitches to remind you that you're in a simulation. And I think that whole simulation thing was just a big dumb mistake. There were no consequences, there was no impact on the environment, and everything just felt like there was no point. Worse, the quest's goals and objectives were never fully explained other than "do it because we ordered you to and you're too dumb to understand why."

The main storyline is funny and when you finally rescue your cast of friends it starts being a Saints Row game. But there's just too much nostalgic fan service. Every ten minutes there's a reference to the first three games and then it actually starts to be a gameplay element where you're fighting all of the original gangs and villains. In fact, the entire game is another love letter to the 80s and 90s cyber culture with a lot of sci-fi references akin to Blood Dragon. I appreciated the funny game switch-ups through text adventures and side-scroller beat 'em ups, and the game does feel a lot more polished, but I honestly can't think of any reason to play this if you've already played SR3.

As I said in the other thread I'm stuck in Need for Speed: the Run on a race with a lot of cop roadblocks where I just can't manage to finish first, second place is the best I can manage and in The Run you have to always finish first to progress. I think I'll give it one more good try before I give up.

We've found out that my wife likes to watch me play platform games and think along with me about solutions to puzzles and such. I can't really get her to try them herself, but she likes to watch me play from time to time. We tried the Little Big Planet demo and both found it too childish, but we're now playing Limbo (I already have it on the PC, but I bought it for the PS3 as well, it was on sale) and we're enjoying that, and after this we're getting the remake to Flashback. Anyone remember that game? It was awesome back in the day, and the demo for the remake is pretty cool as well, and the full version is only 10 Euros. It's subtitled in Dutch, which comes in handy for my wife.

I also have Ico & Shadow of the Colossus and I'm probably getting Red Dead Redemption soon.

EDIT: oh by the way, I tried the CoD: Black Ops demo, and I've decided that not only do I not like the modern Call of Duty games (I enjoyed playing the old Call of Duty 1 on the PC and might play 2 as well in the future, but Black Ops didn't do it for me), I've also decided that I don't like controlling FPS games with a gamepad. FPS gaming will probably stay on the PC for me.

Right now PC gaming is on the backburner, I'm playing a little FlatOut 2, my favorite racing game, but that's it. I have several cool games lined up, but I want to upgrade my video card first to be able to play those games in full HD resolution. I plan to buy a new video card somewhere in the new year.

Maybe I'm going to play a shooter on the PS3 after all... I tried the Rage demo and enjoyed that much more than Black Ops. Absurd story-driven sci-fi is more my thing than gung-ho military hoorah shooters, and I like the combination of walking around talking to people, shooting things in the face, and racing. It's also less linear than Black Ops where you're stuck on an incredibly tight leash, which I didn't like. Rage is pretty cheap too, so I'm probably getting it some time.

I'm still uncomfortable with the controls, so I'll play it on Easy. I tried the Rage demo on Easy, and even though I ran out of ammo several times and had to punch enemies with my fists, I didn't die even once, so I think I'll be able to manage Rage on Easy despite my lack of skill. Hopefully by the time I'm finished my skill has increased enough to be able to play other shooters on Normal.

Finished Limbo on the PS3, the current game-to-play-with-the-missus is Beyond Good & Evil HD, a game I've always wanted to play but refrained from buying on the PC because the PC version is a buggy mess. Liking it so far.

On the PC I got Doom 3 BFG edition on the cheap on Greenmangaming. To my surprise Doom 3 runs very well on my old PC on full HD, so I'm going to play that, but first I threw the Doom 1 & 2 wads (included in the BFG edition) into the Doomsday engine source port and am doing a replay of Doom 1 and 2, having a lot of fun with it. Say what you want about id's games, the gameplay is always very solid and fun. I also thought that about the Rage demo I played, I'm going to buy that for the PS3 someday too if I don't get it for Christmas.

Beat Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon over the weekend. This game is 80s and early 90s action movie cheese-tastic and I loved every second of it. From the heavily synth'd music to the terrible names and one liners, it felt like I was transported back to my youth. Even the interface has an interlaced feel to it. The is pretty much just FC3 in a slightly different environment so it's easy to figure out. The best part of the game for me was picking up on all the references.....some of which were rather subtle. The game is a bit short short but full price is only $15. I had a blast....I bet you will too.

Playing -Opening 200ish turns of Civ 5 with all the races trying different openings-Dailys in Firefall and as much research as I can get done

No longer playingFallen Enchantress- Can't get into it. Dunno. I lover the old warlord series and this is pretty much an enhanced version of that, so you think I would love it... but, the "user experience" of actually doing things in the game just pisses me off to no end. Kinda sad, because the game systems look well thought out and the AI looks top notch... but the soulless interface mechanics have driven me away. (it also doesn't work with multi-monitor setup, which makes me refuse to sneak in a few minutes when I need a break )

Path of Exile- Have to admit I am disappointed with the end boss content. There are also some pretty bad gear walls in the league I was originally playing...because well, I get the feeling the economy was totally messed up, so they just threw the whole thing away in favor of other leagues.

Mindless MechWarrior Online pugging- I like exploding mechs, but really this is an all around terrible game... I mean holy crap, it is 2013 and trees don't get knocked over by mechs and the match-maker would probably be more balanced drawing random names out of a hat.

Demigod- You know what, let's face it, I don't want to mod this game anymore, Sure QoT still needs a bit of work, a few items need tweaking and Unclean Beasts Plague Ability is still in bad need of some bug fixin'. But.... time to move on.

Not playingSkyrim Dragonborn or Dawn Guard (because I haven't bought them yet).... Look I love Skyrim. Despite it's flawed game systems, it is a fantastic game I have explored everything in. But DLC just has not been handled professionally for PC users. Between intentionally delayed releases in favor of Xbox, and pricing the Legendary edition cheaper than DLCs... I want to give Bethesda a swift kick in the nutz. These guys have always had terrible game support, but now they're just being clueless dicks.

Waiting for-Torment Numenera- I'm a backer because I love Planescape Torment... this is the only game "text" that has emotionally unbalanced me the more I think about it...

The Atari Bankruptcy IPs - Finally those French dillweeds at infogrames had these IPs, that they've been intentionally sitting on, wrestled away)-Total Annihilation II- Franchise is back in the hands of Chris Taylor @ wargaming.net--Master of Orion IV- Although I wanted to see this go to StarDock, Wargaming.net should be up to the task.-Star Control IV- Now at Stardock. For certain Brad Wardell is up to the task of making this an awesome game.

Galactic Civilizations III is in the works right now, alongside continued support for Fallen Enchantress I believe, so it may be a while before Stardock gets around to anything else.

As for TA, I started playing the beta for Planetary Annihilation a little bit last week, and it certainly delivers on its promise of being a faithful recreation of that kind of game. I never played the original (TA), but it's almost a carbon copy of the SupCom I remember. The only thing screwing me was not knowing how to progress tech since there's no explicit research tree or building upgrades (yet?). So by the time I figured out that the little worker guys built higher level buildings than the one they came from, the AI was swarming me with strong units and finishing up advanced shit like the space launcher thing. So the biggest new thing is that you don't play on a map, you play in a solar system. The planet you start on is orbiting around a star, so dynamic day/night cycle built in there, and there are other bodies in the vicinity that you can expand to. I only saw one in that match, maybe it's still early, but the concept is to be able to make other bases in a safe place and/or build the giant thrusters to propel the moon or asteroid or whatever it is into the main planet on top of your enemies. Like a super nuke move that can't be countered by puny anti-missile systems. I noticed that they were often orbiting a great distance away from each other, so I'm wondering if there is an element of waiting for a good window and managing trajectories, both in sending units across space and rocketing a body somewhere. I.e. look out for that sun! That'd be cool.

Dead Island: Riptide - I somewhat enjoyed the first game. The atmosphere was great and there were promising elements of survival horror done right. But the respawning enemies, focus on melee, lack of a meaningful plot or characters, the abundance of resources, and the lack of anything but fetch quests made it difficult to finish. Not to mention the gallery of bugs that plague your every move. Sadly, Riptide fixes absolutely none of the bugs or gameplay issues, nor does it add anything save for more content. At least the game starts off promisingly with something of a scripted plot and some cool environments, but when that opening act ends it's right back to the monotony.

Remember Me - The main thing this game has going for it is its setting. Its every bit as wondrous and detailed as something from Deus Ex: HR. The story is surprisingly good with some interesting twists and turns and plot-driving amnesia done right. The combat, however, fucking sucks and I wish it was sparse or nonexistent. Its built around Arkham-style freeflow combat but with a focus on timed combos. But unlike Batman the combat is janky and somewhat non-responsive. The controls are dismal and I wish the game was less linear. I would love to explore certain hubs of the city. That said, as a fan of cyberpunk I greatly enjoyed this game. The art and world building was top notch.

Burial at Sea (Bioshock DLC) - It was short but I thought it was a perfect sort of length. The return to Rapture was nothing short of bedazzling. The graphics really held it up. Incredible attention to detail for a minor DLC. Sadly I wasn't all that impressed with the plot. It was somewhat hamfisted into some noir setting that it seemed to have lost all focus. But I didn't care. Exploring Rapture is all that matters here and the DLC encourages this to the extreme (no combat for the first 40 minutes).

Act of War: Direct Action - So I finally found a fix for this oldschool RTS. It won't run on anything but Windows XP with less than 2GB of RAM. It's the most absurd fucking restriction ever but some modifications and a new .exe will fix it. For some reason I remembered this series differently. It was fun and superior to C&C Generals but now that I've replayed it I'm kind of disappointed. The unit pathfinding is dismal, the story is even more absurd than C&C, the AI in both your units and the enemy suck, and the gameplay gets tediously rock-paper-scissors without balancing other considerations like pricing, speed, durability, special abilities, etc. So the game is incredibly unbalanced. Still, it's a great RTS if for the single fact that the singleplayer apes Command & Conquer in wondrous FMV cutscene action.

The expansion, High Treason, doesn't really do much but adds naval units (meh) and another full sized campaign (yay, I guess).

Metro: Last Light DLC - Fucking excellent. It's all bite-sized but each DLC is extremely polished and fully presentable as a portion of the main game. Each DLC mission takes one element of gameplay in Metro and expands on it, from stealth to straight up action. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's never an issue since each mission is self-contained and short. Some cool stories, especially the Spider Lair which was quite visceral. The later DLC missions will explore some of the supporting characters who helped Artyom and though it doesn't really add much to the story it does give the overall franchise a greater sense of depth and worldbuilding. I enjoyed this DLC immensely.

Resident Evil 4 - Dismal PC port. No mouse support. I couldn't finish it, not that I really wanted to anyway. It still holds up well all of these years later but I was never a fan of the setting. Its too drab and rustic. Not enough variation to keep my interest. Also the story is just dumb as shit and I can't abide by anything that doesn't realize Spain is in Europe and is entirely different from Latin America. I remembered playing and loving this on the GameCube years ago so I figured I'd try it again. Meh. I think I just don't like the unique gameplay style of Resident Evil since I'm also struggling with Resident Evil 5.

Diablo II - I replayed the first two games and, like with my above experience replaying games I used to enjoy, I noticed that Diablo II isn't as great as I thought it was. Though I gave up on the first Diablo since it got monotonous very quickly, the second Diablo loses all of the atmosphere of the first. There are more interesting environments and enemies but there's no sense of dread or foreboding. And the interface just hasn't aged well at all. I guess nostalgia isn't as big a factor for me as it is for some people. Some older games just can't be played save for in their own time. But that's not to say all oldies are like that. I've been going through my GOG catalogue completely impressed by how well so many games hold up nowadays. Older Blizzard titles not so much.

I've been playing The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The game is best described as what you'd get if you were to throw Torchlight 2 as hard as you can at Diablo 3. Graphics and animations are quite nice, load times are very strange, dialogue between the main guy and his companion is done well but the voice acting is all over the place. The voices for the main characters are fine but the NPCs range from adequate to cringe worthy. I guess it's to be expected since it's a budget title. I got it with a bundle that included 3 of the DLC packs. 1 pack give new abilities to your companion while the other two give you access to new playable classes. So far, I'd say the DLC isn't worth it but since I got it all for only $10 I can't complain. It's a little on the short side but I must admit, I've been enjoying it. They just announced a sequel is in the works and I'm looking forward to it. Give it a shot if you've got a few spare bucks and like ARPG games.

jwhx wrote:I've been playing The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The game is best described as what you'd get if you were to throw Torchlight 2 as hard as you can at Diablo 3. Graphics and animations are quite nice, load times are very strange, dialogue between the main guy and his companion is done well but the voice acting is all over the place. The voices for the main characters are fine but the NPCs range from adequate to cringe worthy. I guess it's to be expected since it's a budget title. I got it with a bundle that included 3 of the DLC packs. 1 pack give new abilities to your companion while the other two give you access to new playable classes. So far, I'd say the DLC isn't worth it but since I got it all for only $10 I can't complain. It's a little on the short side but I must admit, I've been enjoying it. They just announced a sequel is in the works and I'm looking forward to it. Give it a shot if you've got a few spare bucks and like ARPG games.

It's definitely on my list of gonna gets at some stage. I passed when it was on sale last week, but only because I'm saving my pennies for Thief.

Without a video card, my library has been collecting dust. Gotta wait until after Christmas to get one. My wallet's spent after shopping for my kids. Been enjoying some games on my iPad Air though. Here are a few screens of what I feel are well worth the price; most under 5 bucks. Some free,

Air Mail is a fine attempt at a Crimson Skies clone with fun missions and cool environments to explore.

Rayman Fiesta Run is a spinoff of Rayman Legends, just the way that Jungle Run was of Origins. They are consistently superb.

Asphalt 8: Airborne is a fair mix of Hot Pursuit and Burnout. Never played any of the first 7, but this one's pretty sweet.

Castle of Illusion hit iOS not too long ago. Was gonna grab it on Steam just before my card went caputz. Highly enjoyable platformer.

Lili is your consummate adventure game with plenty of exploration and puzzles to solve.

So many games that have been out for PC have made their way to iOS. Some have been considerably more enjoyable to play on iPad. Ms. Splosion Man, Runner 2, Machinarium, Unmechanical, Walking Dead, Monkey Island, World of Goo, Bastion, the Lego games, Limbo, Dungeon Defenders, XCOM Enemy Unknown . . . and the list goes on.

So I picked up Legend of Dungeon for about a $1.50 on the steam sale...

It's a good distraction... and has good attention detail (eg: I picked up a skull and steam punk hat, the skull makes me a necromancer spamming skeleton minions everywhere.. and the steam punk hat leaves a trail of smog everywhere I go XD)

this should have been a Turbo-Grafx-16 game 20+ years ago, would have been great fun with 4 players going at it at the same time.

Not yet playing, but gonna play:Bioshock Infinite: Burial At SeaBatman: Arkham CityDeus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut (got it cheap for the updated boss fights. Got to see how I can take down without killing!)The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

But right now I have returned, once again, to Fallout 3. I cannot help myself, I just love this game!

I've been on a bit of a mobile tear lately -- Threes and Puzzlejuice have been taking up most of my iPod breaks of late. Really great blend of cool mechanics and appealing presentation. Threes in particular could have gone completely over my head if it weren't so pleasant to get into.

I finished Ico on the PS3 yesterday. What a wonderful game. It's kind of a sad experience, I felt melancholic for the rest of the day after finishing it. It's such a delight when I play a critically acclaimed game and it's every bit as good as I'd hoped.

It's also an excellent port by the way. It's full HD instead of 720p, supports 3D and I didn't run in to a single bug or glitch.